Toni King/Memory Hole Blog: The De-Authorization of James F. Tracy

Brilliant commentary on the attempted discrediting of Media and Communications Professor James F. Tracy whose investigative journalism on Sandy Hook (published on his blog) revealed so much that he was fired from his tenured position at Florida Atlantic University, while Amazon, revealing its backing, banned the (edited by) James Fetzer/ Mike Palacek book he and other experts contributed to, Nobody Died at Sandy Hook (It was a FEMA Drill to Promote Gun Control) (now downloadable free,) and a mass public effort began, to attempt to destroy his credibility. Questioning false-flag events, the “official”–CIA-controlled MSM–narrative goes, is tantamount to labeling yourself a conspiracy-theorist. Blogs–MSM also strives to suggest–are “fringe,” not proper forum for real journalism.

Given that MSM has abandoned real journalism altogether, for paid regurgitation of government propaganda, in between the entertaining fluff of distractions, I think we can safely conclude that we are in a rather unique space today, where real journalism is transferring to alternative media and, yes, to blogs, websites, talk shows, news shows, and interview podcasts run by a wide variety of observers, analysts, citizen journalists, critics, activists, subject matter experts, and those investigative journalists who continue to be guided by ethics and backbone, rather than dollar signs or “intelligence” agencies. And are unafraid to ask–and investigate and report on and answer–the real questions.

Much as government today, with its excesses of surveillance, covert activities against the populace, censorship, and executive-ordered propaganda and Psy Ops (such as Sandy Hook?) is slowly but surely phasing itself out, as this article also notes.

Excerpt from close of article:“While the government palpates the body politic for signs of resistance, and mass media is busy scrawling politically correct ideas across the face of questionable national events that seem to demand some urgent action, emotion is pouring out of the populace, short-circuiting critical thought and inciting a righteous desire for state intervention. Finally, the government has what it wants: a mass of citizens are clamoring for the agenda it was pushing all along.

This is a blasphemous inversion of participatory democracy. American civil society has been co-opted by illegitimate power and must be abandoned. It will have to be constructed anew in a public space that remains outside the control of the government and its institutions, where it can be called upon to justify its democratic legitimacy to its participants.”

It took two weeks for the Sun-Sentinel newspaper to announce that James Tracy had stirred up a controversy. In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary mass shooting incident, the academic had published a series of articles describing the neglect of major media to address discrepancies in their own reporting, as well as the appearance of their collusion with law enforcement and federal agencies in carefully managing a narrative that focused away from journalistic investigation. Tracy’s writings gathered attention from independent researchers, but were little noticed elsewhere until, singularly, the Sun-Sentinel newspaper was roused to mount an exception to the Professor’s critique.

The problem for the Broward/Palm Beach counties publication was that Tracy, a PhD whose areas of expertise include media and communication studies, was the kind of authority the newspaper was accustomed to running to when it wanted to shore up its own credibility. What to do? Deciding to ignore Tracy’s observations helped the newspaper slip past the need to justify its own position, and move on to the only option left to it: discredit the man himself.

They began to cultivate a “Nutty Professor” trope. Because Tracy published his observations in a blog, he was portrayed as dwelling outside professional boundaries in the mad fringes of the internet, where, it was imagined, he compounded fantastical conspiracy theories from the innocent mistakes made inadvertently by the media in the early hours of the event.

In a string of articles, the Sun-Sentinel continued its defamation and was joined by larger establishment media in chorusing outrage that someone with professional credentials had the temerity to ask questions. The rhetoric turned uglier as Tracy was labeled twisted, his ideas bizarre, and the drumbeat to remove him from his position increased. In the comments sections of online print and news sites, the outrage and derision slid into physical threat.

Still no one would grapple with the issues that Tracy brought forward. Instead, mass media led the country in a pageant of grief, and the ensuing emotional wave helped drown out any critical response.

The victims became the story instead of the crime. Abandoning real investigation, much time and production were spent dramatizing each family’s unique grief, with on-air journalists evincing tearful awe at every inspiring story. A narrative developed that the ordeal was so heinous and the grief so unique that, in order to spare the families of the victims more intolerable suffering, one must ignore the crime altogether.